Monday, April 4, 2011

Too Macho

Henry Abbott, the fearless leader of ESPN's TrueHoop Blog, made an interesting speech at Dork Elvis' Sloan Sports Conference last month. In his presentation he wore a fantastic red tie. He then talked about how the over-emphasis of "macho" in basketball causes decision makers to overlook the less-manly qualities of the game and how a focus on wimpy-ness can be exploited for better output.

Henry starts off with an analysis of how much better Shaq could have been if he could have hit free throws Rick Barry Style. He then moves in to how The Lakers meditate through Zen Master's guidance and are the only team to do so while at the same time being our back to back NBA Champions (coinkadink?). The "Chris Paul in Crunchtime" debate is brought up again as the Hornets are far and away the most effective crunchtime team over the past 5 years. Henry cites an NYT article about how NBA teams who touch eachother more (high fives, butt slaps, hugs, chest bumps) have better win percentages. Skinny players are often overlooked commodities to NBA decision makers for some reason even though skinny dudes are awesome (I keep telling myself that and now I finally have validation). Lastly, Abbott discusses the potential of female leadership in the game being a catylist for more effective teaching of impressionable millionaires.

PEEP THE VIDEO HERE . It's totally worth the time.........if only to gaze into Henry's dreamy eyes and envision giving him a chest bump after he posts another awesome blog post. Wait a second, scratch that last sentence.